


Fiddler's Green

by latin_cat



Series: Who Goes First? [2]
Category: Master and Commander - Patrick O'Brian
Genre: Deathfic, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-09
Updated: 2012-03-09
Packaged: 2017-11-01 17:03:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/359204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/latin_cat/pseuds/latin_cat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An aging and ill Jack does not cope well with Stephen's death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fiddler's Green

“I give you joy of your commission, Captain Aubrey.”

George’s blue eyes lit up with pure, unadulterated joy and his hands visibly shook as he took the sealed document from the admiral.

“Thank you, sir,” he managed to utter, struggling as he was to keep his composure. “I cannot tell you how happy this makes me, especially to receive it from your hands, sir.”

Heneage Dundas smiled indulgently at the young man seated before him. It was unusual for the admiral to smile indulgently at anyone, save one of his numerous clan of natural children, and anyone intimately acquainted with him would have cocked an eyebrow in surprise. However with age Heneage found there came a certain degree of nostalgia, and to see the young man eagerly taking up his first command – a midshipman he himself had formed – looking forward to a future in a rapidly changing navy, he could not help but remember all those years ago when he had made the step from lieutenant to master and commander. Indeed, it had been a time belonging to the last century when men wore long waistcoats and the wearing of wigs went hand in hand with respectability. It was for this reason that he smiled.

“And it makes me as happy to present it to you. You’ve done well, my boy, to come this far so swiftly; you take after your father in that sense. True, he didn’t gain his step for a long time, but he deserved it well before. Don’t let it go to your head, mind; you’re in for a long haul this next year or so. Command is no feather bed, y’know.”

“Oh no, sir!” cried George, attempting to retain some sense of formal gravity, but failing miserably. “Oh no, I do not expect it to be. I will be mindful of my duty, sir.”

Heneage smiled once more. He could tell even now that George would spend the evening thoroughly celebrating his promotion, and would most likely be carried home singing on a shutter well after midnight. In looks he had more of his mother about him; a healthy lad of just under six foot, built to a slighter figure than his father but possessing the same alarmingly yellow hair and mirthful blue eyes – indeed, Heneage pondered whether the name ‘Goldilocks’ would prove to be an inherent title within the service.

“No feather bed indeed, sir,” Heneage repeated, shifting in his chair slightly. “You’ll make a fine captain, and in a twenty years, who knows? We may well have another Admiral Aubrey in our midst.” He paused for a moment’s thought, now that the formal part of their meeting was over. “Tell me, George, how does your father? I have not seen him this age.”

George Aubrey’s look of good humour evaporated in an instant and his gaze moved swiftly to the carpet.

“Oh, no worse, sir,” he said with a somewhat artificial air. He was no more comfortable with deceit than Jack had been. “No worse at all.”

“George,” said Heneage sharply. “You have always been a terrible liar so there is no point in trying to improve now.”

George shifted uncomfortably, seeming to be having an internal argument with his conscience. He raised his eyes from the floor and within them the admiral was unsurprised to see a look of deep anxiety.

“In all honesty, sir? He is most unhappy. His wits have all but failed him, and… he is seeing the doctor more and more often now. I fear he may not be with us much longer.”

Heneage Dundas nodded gravely. He did not need any clarification to know to which doctor George referred; in Jack Aubrey’s case there had only ever been one doctor. Yet Stephen Maturin had been dead these many years, his last voyage at sea having been Jack Aubrey’s third as an admiral.

“He keeps asking him to use his influence to get him a squadron,” George continued in a wretched tone of voice. “Says it would give him the chance to prove he could still command and win actions! I think he knows somewhere, deep down, that what he is seeing is not real, but he misses him so that he is willing to believe his visions.”

“I don’t believe anyone ever thought he would take it so hard,” Heneage said gently. “I hope…” He cleared his throat. “I hope that you are still able to keep him comfortable. I have made it clear to your mother that if needed I should be happy to offer –”

“That is kind of you, sir,” George dared to halt his superior mid-sentence. “Very kind, but I assure you it is not necessary. Mother and Killick keep him very well at home. It would break her heart, and I daresay mine, to see him resigned to the doctors.”

“She is a brave woman, the dear soul. I must drop by and pay my respects to her soon. And how is old Killick?”

“Still as shrewish as ever,” said George, a small smile curling again at his lips. “Keeps the place in order when it becomes too much for mother.”

“And Brigid? She is well?”

“Very well, sir. She sits with the admiral most days, reading to him and keeping him company. He loves her dearly, but I think at the same time it hurts him to see so much of the doctor in her.”

“And the little one?”

“Eight months gone,” George said shyly, a little pride creeping into his voice along with a slight flush on his cheeks. “Brigid is certain it will be a boy.”  
Heneage smiled again.

“I am sure it will be so. The doctor was certain Brigid would be a girl, and seeing how much she is like her father I dare not consider she would be wrong.”

***

It had been a terrible and totally unforeseeable accident. A gun had broken loose from its breechings during the action and fallen down a shattered hatchway, breaking through some damaged timbers and so into the orlop, killing nearly all who had been down there. Any rescue attempt was completely in vain; Dr. Maturin was dead long before they could clear the wreckage. Jack of course had been devastated and wept bitter tears over his dear friend’s mangled body; the crew had seen it was all their admiral could do not to choke on his grief whilst he read the burial service, and as soon as the bodies were over the side he had locked himself alone in his cabin, drinking bottle after bottle until he was senseless – Killick supposed he had been trying to drink himself to death. He had woken the next morning with the mother of all hangovers and taken to his cot for three days, not rising or eating a scrap until his anxious flag captain called on Stephen’s assistant, Dr. Jacob.

It had been a wretched end to a long and binding friendship; Heneage reflected on this gloomily as his carriage rattled up the long gravel drive to Woolcombe House. He had discovered the true nature of Jack and Stephen’s relationship many many years ago when he had caught sight of the two snatching a daring kiss behind a large rhododendron at a garden party they had all been attending. He had been most shocked at the time, amazed that someone as attached to women as Jack Aubrey could possibly… But then he had stopped to consider the years of shared lodgings, cruise after cruise together, Jack’s smile whenever he had spoken of Stephen’s eccentricities, Stephen’s continual mock teasing about Jack’s weight, their love of music… All these aspects of the friendship these two had shared he thought about carefully, and then he had walked away, certain that no one else had seen, and never mentioning the incident to anyone – not in the least to the men concerned.

The flagship’s had first been alerted to the fact that something was seriously amiss when Tom Pullings, one of Jack’s protégés and his flag captain on the West India station, had entered the cabin to find the admiral holding a conversation with thin air. Seeing an astonished Pullings, Jack had merely smiled, asked him to wait a little, and carried on the conversation. Pullings had waited as he was bidden, trying to conceal his alarm as he realised the admiral’s invisible companion was Dr. Maturin; a man whom all knew to be dead. Having at last delivered his message Pullings had left the cabin, deciding to keep what he knew to himself for the time-being.

Admiral Aubrey’s eccentricity, however, could not remain a secret for long. Over the next month he was witnessed talking to Dr. Maturin seven times; four of which on the quarterdeck in plain view and hearing of the rest of the ship’s company, and once at a formal dinner held at the governor’s house in Jamaica. There was no way their Lordships could possibly leave a squadron under the command of a man who conversed with imaginary persons, no matter how much a hero or how good a seaman, and after sending out their own man to investigate it was with a heavy heart but firm conscience that Vice-Admiral Aubrey was relieved of his command of the West India station. It was the decision that had hastened the decline in Jack’s health.

“Heneage!” Sophie, Lady Aubrey, cried as she greeted Heneage in the hallway, seizing his hands in hers and pressing a sisterly kiss to his cheek. “You are here at last! I was so glad, so happy to receive your letter. You have stayed away too long and you must, must stay the night at least – I will not hear of you leaving us sooner! I shall have Davis break the spokes of your carriage wheels if you do not.”

“In that case I shall not dare disobey you,” Heneage agreed meekly, placing his own affectionate peck on her cheek and then holding her at arms length to admire her. Lady Aubrey had always been a beautiful girl and had aged gracefully, so even with her hair grizzled and several lines across her forehead which betrayed years of care she was still an attractive woman. “Not that I would ever wish to, my dear. My, you are in such good looks as ever! However I’m afraid I shall not be able to stay longer this time; I have business in Town the evening after next which cannot be avoided.”

“In that case I shall spoil you terribly whilst I have you to myself,” Sophie declared. “And, if I am honest,” she continued, once they were seated side by side on the couch in the morning room with the door firmly shut and the footman sent away to fetch tea. “I shall be glad of the company. I see so little of our old friends nowadays – dear Tom comes often, as do Captain Mowett and Captain Babbington, Mr. Reade writes often from Calcutta; but others… And I think it is because it frightens them to see Jack as he is now. Do not protest, Heneage, I know it is true. It is quite alright; I do not resent anyone for it. It is very difficult to keep a brave face, to pretend that everything is well when it all too clearly is not. It is a terrible strain to do so, and I confess that I am relieved that it is not a constant requirement.”

She took hold of Heneage’s hand and squeezed it tenderly.

“I am glad, though, that you have not stayed away. You have always been the best of friends to Jack and I, I could not bear it if you shunned us.”

“You have more courage than anyone I have ever known,” said Heneage, squeezing her hand in return. “Even Nelson. How is Jack? May I see him?”

Immediately Sophie’s lovely face clouded with anxiety, and Heneage felt a knot of dread in his stomach.

“My dear, what is the matter?” he queried. “Is Jack unable to see me? I will not press you if he is not well enough.”

“Oh no, no! He is well – he is _better_ today – though he does tire quite easily, and his chest…” She looked him earnestly in the eyes. “But you must understand, Heneage, that he rarely believes himself to be alone and you must not trouble him about it. If he starts talking to Stephen, even if his conversation seems dangerous – please, humour him?”

No one who did not have a heart of solid granite could refuse the plea in those lovely eyes, and Heneage nodded his agreement. Sophie sighed in relief, but it was only a momentary respite for her.

“I sent word to Sam two months ago; he is due to arrive in a week.” Once again she looked troubled, more agitated than before, gazing out of the window distractedly. “I hope he is in time. It would pain Jack very much if he didn’t see him before he went.”

“A week!” exclaimed Heneage. “Could it be as soon as that?”

“Alas, the doctors do not give him even so long. They say there is a lack of will to recover, which once gone they do not give much hope for the patient’s survival. He is letting himself waste away and there is nothing I nor anyone else can do to cure him.”

Tears were flowing freely down her cheeks now despite her reserve and she rubbed at them angrily, bowing her head in an attempt to hide her weakness. Moved by her courage and evident distress, Heneage took her by the shoulders, lifted her chin so he could look directly into those red but still lovely eyes and wiped the tears gently from her face.

“There, my dear; he is sick in his mind as well as his body, and for that illness there is no cure.”

Vice-Admiral Sir John Aubrey, Baronet of Woolcombe, KB, MP, JP, FRS, RN (retired) was sitting in an elbow chair before the fire in his study, head to one side, eyes closed and snoring gently. Grey-haired and wasted, the figure in the chair swathed in a dark blue dressing-gown was a sad shadow of the Jack Aubrey Heneage had known in his youth; indeed, even the Jack Aubrey of two years ago, his decline had been so swift. No longer the good-humoured ruddiness, no more the powerful figure approaching portliness, no more the lively sparkle in his deep blue eyes. Now that he had allowed it to do so grief wasted away at Jack Aubrey to an extent previously unseen in the admiral’s girth. Indeed, most when presented with the sight of the admiral would have sworn that the emaciated invalid was not Jack Aubrey at all, but a completely different person.

Sophie, having recovered her composure on their way across the hall, walked over to him and touched his shoulder, speaking softly into his intact ear.

“Jack, Jack dearest, Heneage is here to see you.”

The wasted figured stirred and opened his eyes, looking about the room in momentary confusion before his gaze rested on Heneage. As soon their eyes met Jack’s hollow, grey face broke into a splendid grin, and it was only then that Heneage Dundas recognised his lifelong friend.

“Hen!” he cried in delight, bracing himself against the chair arms to sit up. “Hen, you old rogue, it’s good to see you!”

Reaching out a hand for his walking cane Jack made to rise in order to greet his visitor, but seeing the alarm on Sophie’s face Heneage crossed the room to Jack instead, taking hold of his arms firmly and gripping them with the utmost warmth and affection; he could not help but notice though how terribly thin and frail those arms felt under his fingers, where before he had only known firm muscle to have existed.

“Jack! It has been too long, I know. I have been meaning to come down and see you for an age, but there’s always something or other in the Admiralty getting in the way. I honestly swear that had I known how much paperwork would keep me behind a desk at sea I would have happily stayed a Post Captain for the rest of my days.”

“You are not wrong there,” Jack replied with deep sympathy. “I remember when I had my first squadron – in the Year Nine I believe it was – there was more paperwork than you could shake a stick at. I thank Heaven that Stephen was there to dig me out from under it from time to time, else I don’t think the crew would’ve see me but once a fortnight!”

“I will send in Killick with some coffee,” Sophie said artificial brightness, and exited the study at a pace that to Heneage’s eye did not suggest complete calm.

“Bless you, dear Sophie,” Jack called after his wife as she vanished through the door into the corridor. “She is always so thoughtful, and I could do with a cup; I have quite a thirst today, even though that fool Pearson has been trying to have it banned from the house. ‘It excites the liver!’ he clucks at me, and wags his finger in a most intolerable manner that were I twenty years younger I wouldn’t have hesitated to kick him down the front steps myself! Sophie will have none of it, though, and nor will Stephen – Lord, how he used to love a cup! But he says he has no taste for it nowadays, which is a pity. It was always a ritual at breakfast, quibbling over who had drunk more than his fair share –”

“Is Stephen here now?” Heneage asked hesitantly as he sat down opposite Jack, a sudden chill creeping down his spine despite the fire blazing away in the grate; bearing in mind Sophie’s plea for tolerance. Jack however shook his head.

“Oh no, not today. He knew I was to be having guests today and so he took himself over to… to… Well, he’ll be back tomorrow most likely. Odd though; I did not tell him you were coming, so I’m dashed how he knew. You didn’t tell him, did you?”

“No,” said Heneage, answering with complete honestly. “I did not.”

“How strange! But then Stephen has always been such a deep old file; he probably found out some other way. Most likely it was Sophie that told him, though she denied doing so. She probably told him on the quiet, imagining we’d want the place to ourselves as it has been such a while. It is the sort of thing she’d do, the dear soul, and do so without making anyone feel unwelcome.”

“I am sure that is so,” Heneage hurriedly agreed, not knowing how else to answer this or to advance the conversation. He was mercifully saved from further mental exertion at that point by the rather loud clatter of Killick’s arrival with the coffee tray.

“There you are, Killick!” Jack exclaimed impatiently, his blue gaze eagerly resting on the pot. “Hurry up with the coffee, you mumping villain. We are fair parched and in need of a whet.”

“Which Dr. Pearson said you’re not to drink coffee,” Killick muttered as he put the tray down on the low table next to Jack’s chair. “Nor was any excitation of the liver permitted, ‘ee said.”

“Dr. Pearson can go hang!” Jack gave his considered opinion on the matter as he poured out the coffee with a shaking hand. “Damned medicos driving me into my grave with their draughts and advice…”

Killick frowned severely and placed his hands on his hips.

“Now, sir, what would the doctor say?”

“The doctor be damned!” Jack roared in a voice that would have carried on the quarterdeck of a first-rate. After Killick had scuttled out, deciding to not give the admiral any further excitation of the liver by arguing with him, Jack slumped forward in his chair, his face in his hands. “Oh Stephen, Stephen, I did not mean it!”

“Jack,” Heneage said softly, laying a hand on his friend’s arm. “Stephen has been dead these past four years; you know that.”

“Yes, they keep saying that; but how can he be dead when I can see him, when I can talk to him?”

“Jack, you are ill. What you are seeing is not real.”

“I am not ill!” Jack started unsteadily from his chair with sudden energy and began pacing angrily, limping, wheezing and muttering furiously in turn. “Ill, ill he says! I’m not –! Just wait till Stephen comes back with my commission, then we shall see who is ill!”

He was seized by a spasm of coughing that doubled him up, and Heneage had to support him to stop him falling to the floor.

“Please, Jack, sit down. You are worrying yourself and Sophie won’t let me see you again if you excite yourself so.”

Jack went from rebellious to absolute meekness as he allowed himself to be lowered back into his chair, submitting as ever when Sophie’s name was invoked, his cheat rising and falling heavily as he endeavoured to steady his breathing.

“So, did Stephen say he could get you a commission?” Heneage asked, feeling that talking of the late Dr. Maturin was better than listening to his friend’s rattling breaths. Jack looked down at the carpet, his expression both put-upon and troubled.

“Well, he says nothing is definite, that he may be able to arrange something… but only once I am better.”

“He says you are ill?” Heneage saw a ray of hope. “Well, if Stephen says you are ill it must be true! Never a finer physician I have ever seen, able to whip off an arm or a leg as easily as kiss my hand.”

“Yes, I suppose I must be,” said Jack hesitantly. “He says to listen to the other doctors, except that wretched Pearson; that I must rest and try to take my mind off things, not to worry Sophie with my constant harrying about boats – he actually said boats, Hen, boats! After all this time he still says boats! He also says that I should eat more, take a greater interest in life; the first time in years he has not told me I was obese. I try, but it comes hard, not being able to go to sea. I can’t play no more either, and I can hardly make it up to the observatory now without Killick’s help.” He went silent for a moment, and when he spoke again there was a sob in his voice. “Dear God, I miss him so.”

“But I thought you said he wasn’t dead?”

“No, he’s not dead, that is he… That is…” Jack’s brow furrowed as he struggled to align his thoughts, but it appeared he could not, for he shook his head dismissively. “He gets so morose though sometimes. He says he hates to see me like this, says how he’s sick of it all, sick of the deception. I asked what deception, but he shook his head sadly and patted me on the knee and told me to concentrate on getting better. Never was such a deep old file as Stephen.”

They fell silent, listening only to the soft crackle of the fire. Jack spoke up again.

“Philip came with him the other day as well,” said Jack, a small smile spreading across his lips. “It was so good to see him. I asked him how he did, where he has been all this time. He would not tell me exactly, only that it was some distant posting; but he said that he was well, that he was very happy to see me again too. He said I’d soon be seeing more of him and Stephen, and old Joe Plaice and Bonden… He must have got carried away, though; the poor boy also said Nelson would be there! Ha, ha, ha!” Jack laughed heartily, his old cheerfulness returning for a brief moment until it was cut short by another violent fit of wheezing; yet this new information worried Heneage even further for Philip Aubrey (God Rest His Soul) had died on station at the Cape of the Yellow Fever nearly seven years ago, and Barratt Bonden and Joe Plaice killed in battle long before that.

“Jack, you must not let such things trouble you,” he said carefully. Jack, however, waved his hand dismissively.

“Oh no, they do not trouble me,” he assured Heneage. “If anything I welcome them; it is company of a sort, though they come and go so often. I have the feeling sometimes, though, when I see them –” He unthinkingly touched the surface of the trestle table next to his chair. “– that I’ll soon be off to Fiddler’s Green.”

“Jack, for all love, you should not be saying such things!” Heneage chided, alarmed. “Whatever happened to living to fight another day?”

“You would have thought it, would you? But nowadays, Hen, there don’t seem to be any battles left to fight. I don’t think they’ll be sending me to sea again, for all that Stephen says; and truth be told, I’d rather ship my oar and go there now than wait for any other heaven.”

“Jack…” Heneage lay a hand on his friend’s stooped shoulder, but he soon saw that any argument on his part would be in vain; for Jack was staring into the fire, his blue eyes fixed on the flames and mumbling inaudibly beneath his breath. Unable to watch any longer, Heneage gave Jack a final squeeze of the shoulder (which his old friend did not even seem to feel) and then left the room without saying another word, shutting the door and crossing the hallway to rejoin Lady Aubrey.

***

The day after Heneage’s visit Jack did not rise from his bed. His limbs ached and he was so very weary; it would only bring more pain if he tried to negotiate the stairs. Killick and Woodbine, the footman, carried him down to a cane chair on the terrace, swathed him in blankets despite the warm summer air and Brigid sat reading to him. The following day what little appetite he still possessed disappeared completely, and the next the sun stung his eyes so that he had to ask to be taken indoors again. Today it was harder to breathe than ever, the following day even worse. The day after that a grey cloud of confusion descended upon his mind and try as he may it was too much of an effort to raise an arm or turn his head. The next day he could no longer speak – he had nothing to say anyway – and the day after that (though he could not be sure) he thought he saw Sam leaning over him with a mournful look spread across his shining ebony face. The thing was impossible though; Sam was thousands of miles away in the Americas. But as he felt the large, gentle hands encase his and heard the prayers and psalms in Latin murmured in a low bass he thought for a moment that it could be true, and tears fell down his hollow cheeks to be brushed away by loving fingers.

The day after that he did not open his eyes, his chest pained him with every breath and his legs had gone numb. He could sense there were people in the room; Sophie he knew by the touch of her hands, Brigid by her voice, George by the sound of his breathing and, by the smell of it, Killick too. There were other hands too, other voices; the soft hands of two young ladies he did not know, two hysterical sobbing voices that were exactly the same in pitch. He must have known them from somewhere but it hurt to think. Very soon it hurt to do anything and it was easier to stop; just stop hearing, smelling, feeling, thinking and let the world go dark and silent… Then he opened his eyes.

Stephen smiled.

“How are you, my dear?”

Jack sat up, his heart racing. Stephen’s smile widened at his astounded expression and there was a definite gleam of amusement in those normally so reptilian eyes.

“Oh better, much better,” Jack murmured. And it was true; the chest pains, the confusion and lethargy were gone, so was his difficulty in breathing. He pulled back the blankets and twisted round so that his feet touched the floor and he found once more he could stand; stand tall and not hunched over from the now absent pains in his chest. Stephen came over and took his hands in his and Jack pulled him into an embrace, holding him tightly in his bear-like arms, for quite a while not daring to let him go… Yet as they embraced the events of the past four years came rushing back to him and, remembering, after a moment Jack leaned back and fixed the doctor with a quizzical expression.

“But, Stephen; you are dead.”

“That I am, my dear.”

“Then, if you are dead, how…?”

Stephen looked at him gravely, then turned him round to face back towards the bed he had just risen from. Sophie was crying, bent over the pale body of a wasted old man; a strangely familiar old man. Jack swallowed painfully and made to comfort her, but Stephen gently laid a hand on his arm, restraining him.

“No, soul, let her alone. She will be well cared for.”

He watched tearfully as Sophie broke into violent sobbing and George came running into the room, Brigid following at a slower pace due to her now quite swollen belly. Seeing in a moment what had caused the scene, Brigid calmly took hold of Sophie’s shoulders, supporting and leading her away, murmuring to her comfortingly. Left alone George slowly approached the bed and knelt beside the corpse, bottom lip unsteady and eyes moist; but Jack observed with some pride that even now the boy refused to be unmanned. He felt Stephen place a hand on his shoulder.

“Come, my dear. The others are waiting for us.”

Jack turned away from the scene, away from the dim gloom of his bedroom at Woolcombe, Sophie’s sobs still ringing in his ears. They weighed heavily on him now, but all too soon they would fade as he began to take in their new surroundings. Somehow their location had shifted to somewhere else entirely; an outside townscape, a harbour front quiet and lazy in the early evening. Yes, he knew this place, he was sure of it. The warm glow of the setting sun, the light Mediterranean breeze… Mahon. He was back at Port Mahon, though somehow everything he saw seemed more vivid, more intense than it had ever done in his youth. And he himself had changed. No longer was he wearing his nightshirt, but his full dress Admiral’s uniform, his sword by his side, hat on his head with the Turkish chelengk in place. He was alive, young again; his hair, clubbed at the nape of his neck, was once more the startling yellow that had given him the name Goldilocks.

Turning from the familiar buildings and streets of the port he gazed out to sea, and as he did so his eyes widened to almost comical proportions. So many ships – hundreds, thousands – stretched across the horizon as far as the eyes could see; more ships than he had ever seen together at one time in his life. Ships of all shapes and sizes, of different nations, different ages, some from ancient times themselves; and in the middle of the fleet flying the white ensign from her mizzen was _Victory_ herself. His heart skipped a beat as he recognised the distant figure pacing her quarterdeck; hat athwartships, grey pigtail, stars and medals blazing across his chest and both – yes, _both_ – hands behind his back as he paced. Stephen touched him gently on the shoulder.

“Look.”

Jack turned to where the doctor indicated and drew a sharp intake of breath. Anchored out in the bay was the _Surprise_ , as trim and pretty as if she were awaiting a Sea Lord’s inspection; his dear, dear _Surprise_.

“There, brother; did I not tell you I would have a ship for you?”

“Yes, oh yes, Stephen,” he whispered, a lump rising in his throat. “To be true… I never thought I would see her again.”

Stephen smiled, taking hold of his hand and squeezing it affectionately.

“Come, my dear; it is time we were aboard.”

Jack laughed and tears of joy rolled down his cheeks, taking in her exactly squared yards, snowy-white sails ready to be unfurled, her rigging alive with men and her paintwork as fresh as if she were just out of the yard. And there at the quayside waiting for them in the barge was Bonden; hat in hands, a broad grin across his weather-beaten face as he placed knuckle to forehead.

“Welcome home, sir.”  
 

FIN.

**Author's Note:**

> Possibly against popular opinion, I have always thought that Jack would deal worse with Stephen's death than Stephen would with his.
> 
>  _“Wrap me up in me oilskin and blankets  
>  No more on the docks I’ll be seen  
> Just tell me old shipmates, I’m taking a trip mates  
> And I’ll see you one day on Fiddler’s Green.”_ – ‘Fiddler’s Green’, Trad.


End file.
